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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457203">The Law of All Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle'>pipistrelle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:49:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>951</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the orrery, before the betrayal, Aughra and skekTek were friends. In another world, in another time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aughra &amp; The Scientist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Law of All Things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They walk through the morning, meandering across the alluvial plain all the way to the outskirts of the great wood. The Emperor has wished skekTek to discover the road through the wood; he does not see it, though there must be one nearby, for this is the way the Gelfling of Stone-in-the-Wood most often approach the Castle. But no matter. The shade of the trees is gratifying, as spring is ripening like a peachberry on the vine, and its gentle warmth will soon become the stifling heat of high summer.</p><p>After half a dozen trine already on this world, the Scientist is beginning to get a sense for the underlying rhythms of its biosphere, the way its seasons succeed each other, swift as a clock's tick. He has not yet heard the song Aughra keeps insisting he must hear; but there is time yet. It is a problem he continues to study.</p><p>They take their repose under the spread canopy of a young hayberry tree. The tree itself is of a genus that is well-known, and therefore of little interest. But Aughra seems aware of everything that lives, no matter how small or well-hidden, and she's always finding more specimens for the Scientist to examine.</p><p>"Ah, yes. This, I have seen before." The Scientist draws a ring of lenses out of an inner pocket, peers down through a quartz funnel at the whirligig spider cupped in his palm. "The arrangement of the pedipalps, you see, is a common one among the arboreal chelicerates, a quite ingenious means of gleaning sensory --"</p><p>The force of Aughra's blustering roar shakes down a flutter of hayberry leaves on their heads. "You lie! Filthy lying Skeksis!" She snatches the spider from him, lets it run over her gnarled wrist and the backs of her fingers. "You slanderer!"</p><p>"I do not see what I have done to deserve such abuse," the Scientist protests.</p><p>"You have seen nothing like this before! Thra is a marvelous symphony, a wellspring of creativity and life! It does not repeat!"</p><p>"This may be true," the Scientist allows, "but there are other worlds than Thra. Some of those worlds have arboreal chelicerates also."</p><p>"Hmmph!" Aughra returns the spider to a branch, watches it scurry away into the seamed bark with a proprietary eye. "Filthy Skeksis exaggerates. It has not seen any world nearly as beautiful as Thra."</p><p>The Scientist permits himself an indulgent chuckle. "Your bias towards Thra clouds your judgement, Aughra. It stands between you and the truth of the universe. It is a flaw you must overcome if you wish clear sight."</p><p>"Skeksis has no notion of what I wish!"</p><p>The Scientist bows his head and spreads his hands in submission. "I grant you that the others do not. But I am an observer, Aughra. I observe the stars, and the movements of Thra in space, and the fires that animate it, deep beneath the outer rock. And I observe all its forms of life. It is my function to understand these things -- in the service of my Emperor, of course."</p><p>The three suns are spaced across the sky like beads on a string. The first brother is already past the zenith, with the others racing to catch him up -- a fanciful idea, and nonsense, for the course is fixed, the race made unwinnable by the laws that govern the motion of heavenly bodies. It is perhaps this unusual configuration, this triplicate light, that causes a momentary sharpening of Aughra's outline as she looks at him with her ordinary and her supernumerary eye. In her look -- he notes it with fleeting attention -- is an intense flame of curiosity, and overweening pride, and an equally overweening pity.</p><p>"Skeksis are not of Thra," she says at last, half muttering to herself in the way she does sometimes. It is a habit skekTek shares; it would be hypocritical of him to begrudge it of her. "Yet there are times, when skekTek speaks this way, that I almost think you could learn to hear its song."</p><p>"That is precisely what I seek to learn."</p><p>He does not lie; he has no need to lie, it is beneath him. He is, as he has always told her, a seeker of truth, and it will be immeasurably helpful to his research to learn the pattern of this planet in its natural equilibrium, before the vivisection begins.</p><p>Abruptly Aughra stands, scattering leaves and complacent spiders. "There is little love in you, Aughra sees that. Yet is it possible to understand life, and not to love it? I think not! Come, skekTek, onward! I will show you the life of Thra, that you may understand it, and cherish it, and admit that no other world of your myriad stories is half as beautiful as mine!"</p><p>"Yes, yes, that will be quite interesting," skekTek replies, rising to follow her path of chaos through the forest. Birds flutter after her, so delicate and startlingly rich in hue that they are hardly distinguishable from blossoms. The sight jars him unexpectedly; if he were the poetic type, he would perhaps feel, or imagine he feels, something within him stirring in response to it.  A yearning, caught by the flare of the suns through the inexpressibly intricate maze of chlorophyll and living pigment, pulling him on toward a horizon of understanding just beyond the borders of cold fact and into the wilds of something else entirely.</p><p>"Keep up, dull Skeksis!"</p><p>"Quite interesting," skekTek mutters. He'll have to bring a recording device, next time he's abducted for one of these walks. He scoops a few discarded fire-painted feathers into one of his many pockets, to bring back for the Ornamentalist, and scurries in Aughra's wake.</p>
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